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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the outlook-cloudy-try-again-later dept.

Several sites are reporting that Windows 10 telemetry and the invasiveness of Office 365's monitoring mean that schools in the German state of Hesse have been banned from using it. The decision was handed down by the Hesse Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HBDI — Hessische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit.) The ban also applies to many other "cloud" services for the same reasons, so Google Docs and Apple's hosted services are banned as well in the same move.

The issue is not solely with hosted services in and of themselves but with the data collection carried out by the services and the question of consent for that with minors. The issue of coerced consent is not raised yet in that context. For the time being, standalone solutions like LibreOffice or Calligra would solve the problem and, many would say, be significantly better all around.

[There used to be a datacenter in Germany — the Deutschland-Cloud — on which the German student data was stored, but that was closed in August 2018. That data was migrated, and new data is now stored, on a European data center that can be accessed by US officials upon request. --Ed.]

9to5Mac: Office 365 banned from German schools, Google Docs and iWork also ruled out
CNet: Microsoft Office 365 banned in some schools over privacy concerns
The Verge: German state bans Office 365 in schools, citing privacy concerns
The Next Web: German schools ban Microsoft Office 365 amid privacy concerns
Original Decision: Stellungnahme des Hessischen Beauftragten für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit zum Einsatz von Microsoft Office 365 in hessischen Schulen


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by srobert on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:15PM (5 children)

    by srobert (4803) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:15PM (#867595)

    "Personally its easier to keep one of my work machines air-gapped ..."
    As a water resources engineer I find the term "airgapped" to be an interesting metaphor for an isolated computer.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:12PM (4 children)

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:12PM (#867612)

    You've never heard of it?

    It's an old term -- think SCADA networks or say nuclear power plant and other 'critical' function computers that would experience a significant degree of 'bad' should they be compromised over a remote connection.

    "Airgap" used to mean "I disconnected the network cable" and then included "we sealed all the USB ports with glue and clipped the wireless antenna wire built into the frame and spun it around three times and howled at the moon" until finally it meant "christ what else are they using to provide "valuable services" that we can't disable?

    One must disable the microphone, speakers, serial, bluetooth, flashing LEDs, "wireless", "network", pour epoxy or glue into any applicable interface port, and maybe even disable biometric scanners and such that could be used to record information that can be copied later during a fateful intrusion that occurs later on when someone finds a way to restore some of the conveniences again, or gets a new computer that has a new interface that wasn't disabled yet, etc.

    The air means "I can wave my hand through it and there are no connections to stop me from doing it" That obviously is a little outdated considering wireless ethernet, bluetooth, etc--but the idea is the same. You essentially put the device in a bubble of isolation and hope no one pops it.

    It often works best in environments that also demand responsibility and accountability from people that know the dangers of being insecure--places that instill such things because the paper cert CISSP from the tech firm supplying outsourcing services read on gartner that its a magic quadrant win to embrace hybrid air gap clouds or something... *at a business with other concerns they should be worrying about...everyone there will resent the air gap policies and some of them will defeat it out of spite, if not malice.

    *these things are sometimes tested via the mysterious USB key found in the parking lot. Sometimes because a business paid for the security audit, sometimes because of other reasons.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by captain normal on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:57PM (2 children)

      by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:57PM (#867631)

      That post by srobert seems to have whooshed right by you. As a retired facilities project engineer, I groked his joke and had a good laugh. "Airgap" is an old (much older than network systems) plumbing term referring to a physical separation between potable water supply and sewage.

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:49PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @08:49PM (#867699) Journal

        I call dibs on the potable water supply!

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday July 26 2019, @03:38PM

        by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday July 26 2019, @03:38PM (#871512)

        You are probably right, but forgive me for seeing the facet based on what I do for a living...

        I know what a sewage airgap is -- I've had to pour vegetable oil down into them sometimes to keep that airgap from making data center work unbearable during renovations!!

        Sewage and air can still transmit a lot of data if you know what I mean. oil in the drain is frowned upon... but so is retching in the summer when the building AC is off in a place that has bugs flying out of the data center floor vents due to a lack of proper care...

    • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:27AM

      by legont (4179) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:27AM (#867792)

      Old tech, bro. Secure installations in my office don't even have an "ls" command. If one doesn't know what's in there, one can't find out. At least that's the idea.

      I am trying to tell them that in such an environment if a hacker does get in, they would never be able to find her, but to no avail.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.